


My God, It’s Full Of Nerds (the It's Sci-Fi All The Way Down remix)

by tielan



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Fluff and Humor, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-12-27 19:22:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12087693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: Do not argue with nerds, for you are unschooled in knowledge and taste delicious with pedantry.(Or: "Steve Rogers and the Science-Fiction of the Twenty-First Century")





	My God, It’s Full Of Nerds (the It's Sci-Fi All The Way Down remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LadyMerlin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyMerlin/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Ultimate Question aka Steve really needs new friends](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1338691) by [LadyMerlin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyMerlin/pseuds/LadyMerlin). 



Rather than revive the original fight, Steve avoids Tony and Bruce and Natasha and Clint, and escapes out to Central Park, taking his sketchbook with him.

It’s not the easiest thing to go unnoticed in New York City; now that it’s known that the Avengers are ‘in residence’, but Steve reaches for the trusty ball-cap and glasses, and finds something to wear that’s loose enough that nobody’s going to notice his physique, and plain enough that he’s not going to draw anyone’s attention.

He takes an ‘emergency exit’ from the tower, down a fire escape that opens out onto an alley. It leads out to one of the side streets past the media cordon who hover, awaiting any Avenger who might be unlucky – or crowd-pleasing – enough to give them a photograph or an opportunity to shout pointed questions. He keeps his stride even and easy, no rushing, no looking over his shoulder. Natasha says he’ll never make a spy, but nobody notices him as he goes so Steve doesn’t have a problem with that.

Outside the entrance of Central Park, he skirts the edge of the crowds of buskers, boomboxes pumping noisily over the rumble of the traffic and the shouts and squeals of the crowds, and steps back to allow a touring family to pass by, only just remembering in time not to look them in the eye.

Subterfuge is not his thing at all.

A couple of hundred yards in, there’s a grassy area, with enough space around that he can see the people as they come and go, that he can sit down and look around him, pull out his sketchbook and start getting his hand in.

He sketches a few rough outlines – people walking by, or jogging, or – in at least one case – dancing.

Steve adds a little more detail to the dancing girl – maybe six or seven, old enough to move ahead of her family without causing her parents too much alarm, young enough not to be self-conscious, and clearly delighted with the way the skirts of her dress bounce with every step she takes.

He watches the girl and her family go by and starts looking around for the next subject.

His eye is caught by a jogger who diverts off the path towards him. It takes him a moment to recognise her – he’s not used to seeing her in yoga leggings and a light hoodie.

“Escaped the glass tower?” Maria Hill inquires as she comes to a stop in front of him, her hands on her hips.

“Sort of,” he admits. “I thought I’d take a break outside. Which it looks like you’re doing, too.”

“Sometimes I don’t want to stare at a screen while jogging.” She glances up as a small chattering group pass them, their voices loud enough to carry across the grass. “And I didn’t care to stick around for the argument about mandatory viewing night.”

“Wise decision,” Steve muttered.

“Ah, someone else caught in the crossfire. So did they reach a decision?”

“I think so. I left Bruce arguing that _Enterprise_ isn’t worth the media it’s stored on. Which started a fight about the cost-value of the Tower’s virtual servers, which proceeded to turn into...I don’t even know. In the end they were arguing more for the arguing than they were arguing about the argument.”

“They do that.” Maria stretches her arms above her head, twisting from side to side to loosen up her muscles. “ _Do not argue with nerds, for you are unschooled in knowledge and taste delicious with pedantry._ ”

“That sounds like a reference.”

“It is. Tolkien.”

“Ah. I watched the movies.” Steve makes a face. “Which is another of those divisive topics. Sometimes it feels like there’s so many of them now.”

“Well, we have to entertain ourselves somehow in these modern times.”

He looks pointedly around at the park. “You’re out here, I’m out here. All these people have chosen to spend a Saturday afternoon outside rather than inside.”

“And you’d probably find even more who’ve chosen to spend it inside.” Maria shrugs as she pulls off her cap and adjusts her ponytail. “I’m going inside once I do another lap of the park.”

Steve glances around, but there’s nobody nearby. “Anything I should know about?”

“Not yet. If you need to know about it, I’ll tell you.” She settles the cap on her head and then sees the speculative look he’s giving her. “What?”

He hesitates, but if there’s one thing Steve knows about Maria, it’s that she’d prefer the straight-up question, no politeness required. “Which do you prefer? _Star Trek_ or _Star Wars_?”

“After all you’ve been through, you’re seriously asking me that?”

“Color me curious. I trust you not to turn it into pedantry.”

“Mmhm. Neither, actually. _Battlestar Galactica_ – the new one.”

“ _Battlestar Galactica_?”

“A ‘Battlestar’ is a ship class, and ‘Galactica’ is the name they gave it – like the USS Hornet.”

In a corner of the drawing pad, Steve scribbles ‘ _Battlestar Galactica_ ’. Maria tilts her head to read it and grins. “It’s not something you’d enjoy, Steve.”

“Why not?”

Maria shrugs. “It’s a story about what happens to a highly technological society after the apocalypse – who we are as people, what we cling to when everything else is gone, what’s the best of us, and what’s the worst of us. You might like the questions its raises – particularly regarding AI, robotics, and moral choices vs. expedient ones – but you probably wouldn’t like the story. The people in it are a few steps away from desperate, and they don’t always do the right thing.”

Which would be why Maria likes it, Steve imagines. Not something he’d watch on his own, although he’d probably sit and watch it with someone else who was passionate about it.

“Do you have any ideas on what kind of science-fiction I might _like_?”

Maybe he won’t get to watch it at series night, but there’s no reason he can’t watch a few episodes on his own time.

She thinks about it. “ _Farscape_? An astronaut gets catapulted through space and time, finds himself on a ship of aliens and having to deal with...well, the loss of everything he knows.”

Steve winces. “That sounds too close for comfort.” But her mouth is spreading in a suddenly sly grin that he distrusts on principle.“What?”

“Just a thought. You’d probably like Aeryn Sun.”

He has no idea who Aeryn Sun is, but before he can ask, Maria is already continuing on. “I know that Tony’s already introduced you to _Dr. Who_ , Classic and New... _Red Dwarf_? _Buck Rogers_? _Babylon 5_? _X-Files_?” She fires them off like bullets. “Did you want one season of _Space, Above And Beyond_ , five seasons of _Fringe_ , or seventeen seasons of _Stargate_? Then how sci-fi is actually sci-fi? _Lost_? _Orphan Black_? _Stranger Things_? Really, Steve, it depends what you’re looking for…and why are you asking _me_?”

The final plaint has a note of desperation about it, and Steve grins. Maria’s usually so put together, that it’s a pleasant change to see her discombobulated. “I didn’t know you knew so much about science-fiction.”

She rolls her eyes. “I worked in S.H.I.E.L.D for a decade, Steve, and a large proportion of it was with Phil Coulson. In case you didn’t notice: ‘ _my God, it’s full of nerds_ ’.”

Steve supposes he should have expected that, if Maria Hill was going to know about something, she wouldn’t stop at halfway.

“What would _you_ watch with me, then?”

He would bet money that she opens her mouth to say, _I wouldn’t_. But she closes her lips around whatever she was going to say, throws up her hands, and huffs.

“All right, then. How do you feel about space westerns?”

* * *

Pepper finds Tony in his workshop in what she calls ‘not-sulking’ mode. Where he’s (self-declaredly) _not_ sulking, while actually sulking (Pepper’s call).

“I thought I’d find you prepping for viewing night.” Half the Avengers are up in the theatre already; Pepper heard the conversations going as she passed by on her way down through the lounge.

“Hill co-opted the home theatre.”

So, definitely ‘not-sulking’ mode, then. “I take it your suggestion of _Enterprise_ didn’t go down well.”

Tony looks at her. “Apparently – and I quote Natasha,” he adds, “‘ _Joe Sweden is his master now_ ’.”

**Author's Note:**

> There's no fitting in the fullness of sci-fi over the last seventy years, but I did try to spread it out a little.
> 
> If the last line does not compute, try [this comic](http://pvponline.com/comic/tue-may-10) and consider that Joe Sweden is simply the MCU counterpart.


End file.
